History, doctrine, culture, books

Ehrman Interview

My cable company changed last week, so the entire channel lineup got scrambled. As I was laboriously searching through 200 cable channels (hoping the Military Channel was still in there somewhere) I stumbled across Book TV. This is what C-Span2 does on the weekend. Among the several programs I watched was a short interview with Bart Ehrman, author of two books I have reviewed on this site, Misquoting Jesus and The Lost Gospel of Judas. Ehrman is presently the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.

Ehrman was asked to tell about the evolution of his beliefs from believing, practicing Christian to his present agnosticism. He explained that he was raised as Christian, then had a born-again experience as a teenager. He dutifully enrolled in the Moody Bible Institute, majoring in biblical theology. Over the years, as he became acquainted with the literature and acquired scholarly tools, he moved from being a fundamentalist to an Evangelical to a mainline Christian (he mentioned the Lutheran and Episcopal denominations). As his scholarship proceeded and his perspective evolved, at some point he could no longer recite the Nicene Creed in good faith, at which point he became (in his view) an agnostic.

He was asked what the focus of his present research is. Ehrman said he is writing a book about the Christian and biblical treatment of the theological challenge of pain and suffering. The most noteworthy popular treatment of this theme is The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis. I'm sure Ehrman's treatment will be more textual but equally engaging.

Incidentally, Ehrman provides a fuller account of his transition from born-again Christian to agnostic scholar in the introduction to Misquoting Jesus. You can read the first few pages at the Amazon page (under the "Excerpt" link).

Mormon Books 2013-14

Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of MormonismGivens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My Review